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Project Fuchsia: Google Is Quietly Working on a Successor to Android

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Re: Project Fuchsia: Google Is Quietly Working on a Successor to Android

#111

Post by pjmlp »

bitmapbrother wrote: post #66
pjmlp wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really, they are winning the desktop and tablets (2-1) war. Desktops aren't going away, and Macs are pretty much an US phenomenon, alongside a couple of other countries. Likewise, Android tablets aren't that good, with most of the apps being phone apps. Google now is playing with ChromeOS for tablets, which also remains to be seen where it goes. So, most consumer shops around here are now mostly selling iPads and…

>Not really, they are winning the desktop and tablets (2-1) war. According to tablet market share stats they are clearly not winning that war and not even a serious competitor. >Likewise, Android tablets aren't that good, with most of the apps being phone apps. Most of the Android apps I use on tablets all resize fine to use the extra space. I consider trying to use desktop apps that are not optimized for a touch int…

We would appreciate to see the worldwide numbers of those stats.

Well, that wasn't the message being discussed at Google IO, specially at the ChromeOS sessions regarding usability.

Re: Project Fuchsia: Google Is Quietly Working on a Successor to Android

#112

Post by dunpeal »

nostrademons wrote: post #101
_m96l wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Per the article, Google has over 100 engineers working on Fuchsia. If these are all "senior engineers" that "Google is trying to retain", the cost of keeping them must be at least 50 million per year. That's a lot of money to pay just for retention of people who are not producing anything of value, consuming many other resources (office space, network, hardware, perks), and deeply committed to a project that supposed…

$50M is tiny compared to the opportunity cost of having 100 of your best engineers jump ship to a competitor or found a new one. Google will pay $50M for a startup with 10 proven engineers and then shut down their product, just so that they aren't on the open market where they can challenge the $50B+ golden goose. Silicon Valley basically works on the principle of "Never let your employees do to you what you did to y…

> $50M is tiny compared to the opportunity cost of having 100 of your best engineers jump ship to a competitor or found a new one.

See my comment to nnq. You can't just take "100 of your best engineers", and stick them on some bogus project that regularly gets raided for its best talent by hiring managers.

If they'd rather work on a bogus project than on a real product, they're not very useful engineers.

The project will quickly be seen as a joke, and not just by one unnamed "person who has spoken to Fuchsia staff", but by everyone in the company. No serious engineer would stay on it.

There's literally no evidence for this far-fetched theory, and no verified examples of this happening in the industry at all. If an engineer isn't producing something worthwhile, he's not a good engineer, certainly not "one of my best engineers".

The whole theory is pretty crazy and it's funny it ended up so high in the comment thread that we're discussing it seriously.

> Silicon Valley basically works on the principle of "Never let your employees do to you what you did to your past employer or competitors." [...]

This is a lot of unsubstantiated hand-waving with no real data to back it up. The data I've seen is that involuntary turnover (aka termination) in FAANG is 5-8% annually, which is very reasonable for healthy companies.

Have you worked for a FAANG? People are regularly put on notice and fired for poor performance. Even a very successful company can't afford to keep poor performers indefinitely. If they do, they would not remain successful for long.

You're describing a public company with fiduciary accountability to its shareholders as if it can be run like some corrupt retirement home for aging diva former-engineers. You realize that if Google was throwing away $50-100m of investor money per year, an exec would eventually have to publicly explain to the shareholders why their money is wasted this way, and if Google was trying to hide that it is a bogus project, then they would be lying to investors, which is a criminal offense?

This theory is frankly nonsense.

Re: Project Fuchsia: Google Is Quietly Working on a Successor to Android

#113

Post by ashelmire »

_m96l wrote: post #86
remir wrote: post #60

"One person who has spoken to Fuchsia staff described the effort simply: "It’s a senior-engineer retention project." This has been my therory for a while. You see all these different projects competing against each other (multiple messaging apps are a good example) and you think: why is Google so unfocused? But what Google basically wants to do is hoard engineers so they don't leave and go work for competitors and ma…

Per the article, Google has over 100 engineers working on Fuchsia. If these are all "senior engineers" that "Google is trying to retain", the cost of keeping them must be at least 50 million per year. That's a lot of money to pay just for retention of people who are not producing anything of value, consuming many other resources (office space, network, hardware, perks), and deeply committed to a project that supposed…

> If these are all "senior engineers" that "Google is trying to retain", the cost of keeping them must be at least 50 million per year.

Wait uh... are you saying seniors at Google make an average of $500k?

Re: Project Fuchsia: Google Is Quietly Working on a Successor to Android

#114

Post by slededit »

dunpeal wrote: post #112
nostrademons wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$50M is tiny compared to the opportunity cost of having 100 of your best engineers jump ship to a competitor or found a new one. Google will pay $50M for a startup with 10 proven engineers and then shut down their product, just so that they aren't on the open market where they can challenge the $50B+ golden goose. Silicon Valley basically works on the principle of "Never let your employees do to you what you did to y…

> $50M is tiny compared to the opportunity cost of having 100 of your best engineers jump ship to a competitor or found a new one. See my comment to nnq. You can't just take "100 of your best engineers", and stick them on some bogus project that regularly gets raided for its best talent by hiring managers. If they'd rather work on a bogus project than on a real product, they're not very useful engineers. The project…

> If an engineer isn't producing something worthwhile, he's not a good engineer, certainly not "one of my best engineers".

Not my experience. I've seen amazing engineers happily convince themselves whatever they are working on is important regardless of what it is. In fact its pretty common for really good engineers to simply fall in love with the code - or be convinced if they only finished this refactor it would be beautiful. I almost never hear them talk of business value.

The ones that do have this insight end up going on to be great managers - as they can bridge the divide.

Re: Project Fuchsia: Google Is Quietly Working on a Successor to Android

#116

Post by abvdasker »

bitmapbrother wrote: post #59

This article seems to have gone through multiple edits to correct all of the incorrect technical facts, but it looks like they still have work to do. Shifting away from using Linux would help Google’s legal case that its software isn’t reliant on Oracle.

Moving from Linux, though, could have upsides for Google. Android’s use of the technology, which is distributed by Oracle Corp.

Yeah this is totally wrong.

Re: Project Fuchsia: Google Is Quietly Working on a Successor to Android

#117

Post by ummonk »

ashelmire wrote: post #113
_m96l wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Per the article, Google has over 100 engineers working on Fuchsia. If these are all "senior engineers" that "Google is trying to retain", the cost of keeping them must be at least 50 million per year. That's a lot of money to pay just for retention of people who are not producing anything of value, consuming many other resources (office space, network, hardware, perks), and deeply committed to a project that supposed…

> If these are all "senior engineers" that "Google is trying to retain", the cost of keeping them must be at least 50 million per year. Wait uh... are you saying seniors at Google make an average of $500k?

That seems like a low estimate of the cost of a senior SWE at Google. They probably earn at least 400k in cash + bonus + stock, and there are employer costs beyond that (office space, benefits, payroll taxes).

Re: Project Fuchsia: Google Is Quietly Working on a Successor to Android

#118

Post by mchahn »

ashelmire wrote: post #113
_m96l wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Per the article, Google has over 100 engineers working on Fuchsia. If these are all "senior engineers" that "Google is trying to retain", the cost of keeping them must be at least 50 million per year. That's a lot of money to pay just for retention of people who are not producing anything of value, consuming many other resources (office space, network, hardware, perks), and deeply committed to a project that supposed…

> If these are all "senior engineers" that "Google is trying to retain", the cost of keeping them must be at least 50 million per year. Wait uh... are you saying seniors at Google make an average of $500k?

Salary is usually only 2/3 of the cost of an employee. Benefits and overhead are a big part.

Re: Project Fuchsia: Google Is Quietly Working on a Successor to Android

#119

Post by mchahn »

dunpeal wrote: post #88
kettlecorn wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Google's self-competition is something they are doing strategically. If you look at the industry as a whole products wax and wane based on market trends. Market leading products often struggle to innovate under the weight of their own success and are eventually replaced by a new innovator that's doing something right. Google, by virtue of creating many different types of products in one category somewhat insu…

Having multiple competing projects is not unheard of in the business world in general, and in high-achieving technology businesses in particular. Often, those outside the organization are only aware of the winning project, and the others are quietly discontinued, with many / most / all members moving to the winning team. I know of several other prominent examples, but can't mention by name because I'd be breaking an…

This is often called the NASA approach since they've hired multiple companies to provide the same component many times. Then they use the best one.

Re: Project Fuchsia: Google Is Quietly Working on a Successor to Android

#120

Post by dunpeal »

slededit wrote: post #114
dunpeal wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> $50M is tiny compared to the opportunity cost of having 100 of your best engineers jump ship to a competitor or found a new one. See my comment to nnq. You can't just take "100 of your best engineers", and stick them on some bogus project that regularly gets raided for its best talent by hiring managers. If they'd rather work on a bogus project than on a real product, they're not very useful engineers. The project…

> If an engineer isn't producing something worthwhile, he's not a good engineer, certainly not "one of my best engineers". Not my experience. I've seen amazing engineers happily convince themselves whatever they are working on is important regardless of what it is. In fact its pretty common for really good engineers to simply fall in love with the code - or be convinced if they only finished this refactor it would be…

For a functional employer, the definition of "a good engineer" is "someone who produces valuable engineering solutions for me".

An engineer who isn't doing that is either mismanaged, misplaced, or is no good. In the first two cases, I can possibly make use of them. But if the engineer is a diva who would only work on some made-up fancy project, then he is not a good engineer for me.

Maybe he will be able to do good work elsewhere, but that's not really relevant for me, my business, or my shareholders. Not anymore than the fact he may be a great painter or musician. Good for him, but sadly irrelevant for my business.

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